The semiconductor integrated circuit industry has experienced rapid growth in the past several decades. Technological advances in semiconductor materials and design have produced increasingly smaller and more complex circuits. These material and design advances have been made possible as the technologies related to processing and manufacturing have also undergone technical advances. In the course of semiconductor evolution, the number of interconnected devices per unit of area has increased as the size of the smallest component that can be reliably created has decreased.
Many of the technological advances in semiconductors have occurred in the field of device fabrication. As device densities continue to increase and feature sizes continue to decrease, device fabrication processes must constantly adapt and improve. One such process includes the use of photolithography with a mask. During photolithography a pattern is defined on the surface of a substrate through the use of light shined through or reflected off a mask. The pattern is typically used to identify two regions on the substrate: a first region that will be exposed to a further processing step and a second region that will be protected from the same further processing step. For example, the pattern might divide the substrate into regions where material is to be deposited or not deposited. In another example, the pattern might divide the substrate into regions where material is to be etched away or should remain.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have improved photolithography patterns and methods.
The various features disclosed in the drawings briefly described above will become more apparent to one of skill in the art upon reading the detailed description below. Where features depicted in the various figures are common between two or more figures, the same identifying numerals have been used for clarity of description.